


cinnamon darling, sweet sugar spice

by squishyscribe



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: Anders Positive, Anders has a sweet tooth, Apostates (Dragon Age), Baking, Buff Hawke, Chubby Anders, Chubby Hawke, Cooking, Domestic Fluff, Dragon Age II Spoilers, Dragon Age: Inquisition Spoilers, Feeding, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Living Together, M/M, Mage Rights, Pampering, Post-Canon, Post-Dragon Age II, Purple Hawke, Skinny Anders, Starvation, Weight Gain, Weight Issues, Weisshaupt Fortress, alternate title: Hawke lavishes Anders and it shows, in this house we love and appreciate healthy handers
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-09-15 00:19:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16923132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squishyscribe/pseuds/squishyscribe
Summary: After what happened at the Chantry, Anders is hardly a shadow of the man he used to be. Hawke, ever doting and determined, exploits a certain trait to sway his lover into being spoiled rotten.Being a pair of runaway apostates is all it's cracked up to be, and a cherry (or three) on top.





	cinnamon darling, sweet sugar spice

Anders doesn't sleep well, the first few weeks away from Kirkwall, and it comes as no surprise – blowing an entire chantry sky high and killing nigh on a hundred people tends not to be good for the soul. He tosses, turns, all limbs and joints and sharp angles, knocking into Hawke, who is mercifully a very heavy sleeper, and ends up spending half the night staring up at the ceiling – or sky, depending where they're bunking – and wondering how much of this would have happened if he hadn't been so damn foolish as to take a spirit into his body. 'None of it' is his typical answer, pledged out of self-pity. Sometimes, though, he sees one of them, the disgusting Templar cult who dare to claim their actions in the Maker's name, and he can't bring himself to regret any of it. They deserved to die, he tells himself, but he doesn't know any more if it's his own voice or that of an abomination that should have been cut down years ago.

When they settle for the first time, he somehow ends up getting even worse. Rest eludes him entirely, the heft of his conscience keeping him on his feet at all hours until there's no energy left in his bones to hold him upright, and he fades out only to resurface in Hawke's arms, anxious eyes fixed down upon him, hands cupping his head like a mother might her newborn child. He catches his reflection in the window one night while he puts out the candles, Hawke sound asleep and humming breaths in the next room, and for the first time since it all began, he feels truly unwell. He's in one of Hawke's old tunics, stained with ale and blood, the collar gaping about his shoulders because Hawke is – well, Hawke is _stocky_ – and has a good deal more muscle than he could ever hope for. It drags across his mid-thigh, straddling the line between demure and cheeky, and it smells like wax and elfroot. _Home_.

The soothing golden glow paints the verdant fabric a dark, heady colour that catches in the glass panes and steals his eye toward. It's a struggle not to gasp at the sight of himself. His legs are stick-thin, making him look like some knock-kneed teenager struggling to cut a deal with puberty. Even in the boxy silhouette of the tunic, he can still make out his hipbones jutting almost parallel to the lines of his body, sharp, threatening to cut right through his skin. It feels wrong to see himself, after decades of selfish vanity, grooming himself perfect just in case he needed to bat his eyelashes at the right person, dark with shadows and gaunt as a pauper. Hesitantly, he guides his hand up and under the fabric, pulling the reflection of his whole body into view. He knows, running his fingers over his chest, that his ribs can be counted by eye, but nothing could have quite prepared him for how close to skeletal he really is. His skin pulls paper thin across jagged corners of his body, showing just how little of him there is any more. He drops the skirt urgently and wraps his arms around himself for comfort – but even that feels so awry, hugging into his own sinewy form. Since he was young, he's always been long and lithe, unfairly so for his old warden appetite, with narrow hips and broad hands and the kind of delicate form that the brasher of the mages at the circle used to clamour for. The last time he'd been this thin, though, he was marked with bruises from the hands of the templars, deliberately starved by brutes who couldn't stand to see him and Karl happy in one another's arms. He'd been so terribly sad, then, that he didn't even feel the hunger consume him, just a longing, a dull, choking ache for the weight of someone's hand in his own. Maybe it's the same now. Hawke hasn't touched him... intimately, since they left Kirkwall, for stress, fear, disgust, or whatever the reason. He doubts there's malice behind it, but it hurts, truly, to go to bed at night and not wake up wrapped in those big, robust arms, his lover's breath warming his neck. The thought of never feeling that muscle taut over his waist again... It's too much to bear. With a heavy sight, he snuffs out the candle, and goes to shuffle over Hawke into bed.

Closing the door behind him, he bends one leg over his lover's sleeping body and hauls himself over – or at least, he gives it a good try before his muscles wobble and crumple underneath him, sending him sprawling back where he came from, landing rather unceremoniously in a heap on the floor. Hawke gives a great, snorting grunt and startles awake.

“Anders?” Comes his voice, low and grumbly with sleep. “Love?”

“'m down here,” he replies, rolling the wrist he landed on as if he can wring out the pain.

There's a mumble from Hawke's direction, and a red burst of energy flies out to spark the lantern at their bedside, illuminating the other man's predicament on the ground. “You alright, love? What're you doing on the floor?”

“Having a tea party,” Anders deadpans. He chuckles roughly. “I fell. Lost my balance getting into bed.”

“Funny, you usually lose your balance getting out the morning after.”

“Ha, ha, very funny. I'm surprised you remember, to be honest. I don't recall the last time we actually slept together and did anything more interesting than sleep.”

He pouts. “What's wrong with sleep?” The blonde meets his gaze, then rolls his honeyed eyes, dusting his angular knees. “Alright, I know. But I still _worry_ about you, you know – and being hunted by half of Fereldan does nothing for the mood.”

Hawke offers a hand and he takes it, pulls himself up and clicks his ankle once each way. “I don't understand what there is to worry about,” he says, and it's the kind of lie that sticks to his tongue after it leaves his mouth.

“There's plenty to worry about! You, Justice, the templars on our arses – Varric on mine – and you can't tell me you've been looking after yourself properly. Just look at yourself. Er, no offence.”

“Because I'm getting thin?”

He hums, pulls Anders down to sit across his lap. He obliges. “I've been wondering when you were going to bring that up. I was more drawing attention to the fact you haven't shaved in weeks, but, uh, yeah. Yes. Maker, Anders, _yes_ , you are so bloody skinny. I...” He draws a hand across his hips and cringes at the sharpness that greets him. “What happened, my love, to make you so small? Do I not feed you well enough?”

“Of course you do. It's just... I feel uneasy. I don't feel like eating, not any more. Maybe it's Justice – he doesn't need to eat, right? Maybe he's got so much control over me now that he thinks I don't need to eat, either.”

“Then you can tell that silly spirit that I'm the boss, and I say you eat three square meals a day from now on, alright? Even if I must spoon-feed you myself. I will stop at nothing to get my man back in fighting form, even if I have to reach into the Fade and wrangle him myself.”

Anders giggles. His leg swings over to wrap around Hawke's waist, and he smiles against his cheek before diverting to his lips, sweeping his arms over sturdy shoulders, feeling Hawke's hands slide down his back. The broader of the two pulls away from the kiss with a contented purr, the ever-hungry buds of his man's lips ghosting over his neck, clamouring for attention. He tries to squeeze under his hands, but finds nothing but bone and what is probably the last little bit of fat on his whole body. “Maker, but I miss your arse. You had such a lovely arse, Anders, all round and firm, just about a handful. I swear, I will get that radiant rear back if it's the last thing I do.”

Anders can't hide his smirk. He sinks his hands to rest against his lover's waist, muscular and tense, a little soft about the edges, and presses another kiss to his temples. “Is that your new quest, o Champion? Fatten up your boyfriend's bottom?”

“My boyfriend _is_ a bottom,” he grins, “but yes. Until you are overflowing my hands, I shall not rest. I hope you like being pampered, Ser Mage.”

“By you? I'm sure there are worse things in the world.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> just something indulgent and sweet to go with my adoration of Handers/Anders settling in and getting comfortable enough with Hawke to let his many, many guards down.
> 
> you can find me on tumblr @ corfussy (at least if it doesn't die before you read this)


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